Page 1502 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 27 September 1989
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MR WOOD (11.33): When Mr Prowse introduced this Bill a month ago, he held up a blown-up colour photograph, which is still around, of some mottled teeth, and it certainly looked very dramatic and rather dreadful. Also, although I did not see the unfortunate person, I believe there was a young Japanese person around this building who had a strange mouth of teeth. These were dramatic indications. I will accept that they were due to fluoride in the water. I do not know that they were. I do not know who the person was or what caused the state of the teeth. The cause of the problem was not particularly identified in any scientific way; it was just said that fluoride caused it. There is a good deal of that around at the moment - just saying things.
Mr Prowse: The patient's dentist identified that.
MR WOOD: I will not deny the point. I will accept that. But, if you want to be more dramatic, I can do something for you. I can suggest you go out to the schools in this city. I have spent a number of years in those schools, and one of the things I have been most impressed with is the bright, gleaming, good teeth of the students in those schools. It is very impressive. That would be dramatic. I suggest that you might talk to the dentists and the dental therapists in the school dental clinics and ask their view about the condition of the teeth of our children.
Mr Prowse: Ask in Brisbane.
MR WOOD: I will come to that. I would think that that would have been the sort of undertaking that an investigation might have been able to do. But let us look at my own example. In the middle of this century, a 15-year-old, as I was then, could expect to have some 13 or so decayed or missing teeth. That was on statistical data. The decay rate was so high that I know that dentists did not know what they should be doing. Because of the high decay rate, many adults had no teeth at all, giving rise to the disparaging comment that Australia was the land of the gum. That was the case, and I am evidence of it because my teeth were not good, despite coming from a family that insisted on the best care they could get for my teeth. I have very clear memories of the way I was required to look after my teeth and still I have got a mouth full of metal.
Today the situation is entirely different. Decay rates have plummeted and it is quite common to see a mouth without a single cavity. Now, if a 15-year-old has four or more teeth with any fillings, it is highly unusual. When the dental nurse came, I used to see the children from my class in school jump up with pleasure. They would go up to the dental clinic and come back with, of course, clear teeth.
A member: Anything to get out of class.
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